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#61
October 6th 04, 06:37 PM
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"The Wogster" wrote in message . .. AnonyMouse wrote: Gold disk is fine and dandy, but ... Do you have a drive that can get data off of my 8" floppy disks from very early CCD image capture devices? How about something for my Syquest disks from 10 years ago?? The medium (in this case, gold disk) is not an ends, but only a small part of an entire line of equipment that would be necesary for data retrieval. Within our lifetimes, there will be thousands of great images that will be lost due to the obsolescence of electronic storage media (not to mention the millions of poor images). So because prior methods have failed to last, then new ones will be condemned to the same failure? There are three issues with long term digital storage. First is the media, it must be able to survive for an extended period of time, say 500 years. Something based on gold is most likely to have that kind of lifespan. Note film does NOT. Next you need an agreed upon technology, in other words the machine to read the gold disk, needs to have long term standards compliance, so that a machine made 500 years from now, can still read the disk. Third the data format needs to be standardized and supported so that 500 years from now, the software will be able to read it. Currently the standards are not there and nor is the technology. However 5 or 10 or 25 years from now, it may be. W The development of such standards for the hardware and software will not be happen until the storage and computer industries ares given a good enough reason to do so. The mere fact that we may need such for digital images is not enough. Business records need to be stored for a specific time period to satisfy legislated requirements (usually for 7 years, if memory serves) after which the organization is free to destroy the data. Contrary to the desires of photographers, archivists, and the like, there is little reason to develop the appropriate storage technology within the present business environment. Without this crucial support, the chances of the development of the appropriate storage technology are, in my opinion, slim. Personally, I have a true desire to have the ability to retrieve electronic data in the [relatively] distant future. Unfortunately, I feel as though I won't live to see this happen. Non-electronic storage, such as photographic prints and novels printed on paper, have a much better chance of surviving the span of time until "someone" realizes that a significant amount of knowledge is being lost forever on pretty much a daily basis. 
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#62
October 6th 04, 07:21 PM
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The Wogster wrote:
As far as I know, it's been called that for years, probably since the early days of photography, when noxious materials like mercury vapours were used with wet plates. Some of the chemicals actually smell okay, except stop bath, I can't stand the smell of vinegar. But did recently see that Ilford has an odourless stop bath, so things are looking up. Minor detail -- mercury vapor was used with Daguerreotypes, not wet plates. And this is, in fact, the most likely source of the "fume room" epithet; part of the process of making a Dag is to sensitize the burnished metallic silver on the plate by exposing it to iodine, bromine, and sometimes chlorine vapors. Once the exposure is made (a few seconds to a minute or two in diffuse sunlight), the plate is (originally, at least) developed by exposure to the vapor over heated mercury. Daguerreotypists were at somewhat less risk than hatters in the mid-19th century, because they used only small quantities of mercury and kept it confined (for economics, not safety) but not a great deal less... Wet plates, though, had their own fumes -- ether was the only solvent common in the wet plate era that would dissolve collodion, which made the wet plate photographer's darkroom (and that of tintypists and ambrotypists, who used the same process) both highly intoxicating, and extremely flammable. Beyond that, storage of ether has its own hazards (a peroxide that forms spontaneously in storage is a high explosive). It's *good* to live in the gelatin emulsion era, when (for most people) the biggest hazard in the darkroom is cutting yourself on the edge of an open 35 mm cassette. I personally enjoy the smells of a modern B&W darkroom -- hot dust from the enlarger lamp house, the gentle bite of hydroquinone in developer, acid stop bath, fixer (a mix of the thiosulfate and more acetic acid, usually), the slightly sweetish, almost alcoholic aroma of PhotoFlo, the hot-glue sharpness of dry mounting, even film and paper themselves (or their emulsions) have subtle scents. It's one of my favorite olfactory environments. -- I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz! -- E. J. Fudd, 1954 Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer Lathe Building Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm Speedway 7x12 Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/my7x12.htm Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth and don't expect them to be perfect.
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#63
October 6th 04, 11:11 PM
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"Michael A. Covington" wrote: "You will always get better quality with film. You can talk to any darkroom expert about that," O'Neill said. He is displaying an amazing ignorance of how photography works. With enough bits, there can be a digital image that outperforms any film image. Sorry. Don't know what your talking about and the physics don't support this. It is you who are displaying igmorance of the differences between these two mediums. "bits" aren't the issue at all... "I haven't mastered digital" doesn't mean "nobody will ever master digital." He probably sees an awful lot of published digital photos without realizing they're digital. Lord Snowdon is another prominent fan of old-fashioned cameras, as are the award-winning news photographers Tom Stoddart and Don McCullin. I *like* old-fashioned cameras. I'm going to keep doing black-and-white darkroom work, as a craft, for the rest of my life. But that does not blind me to the fact that digital technology *does* work, and that it's a better way of doing a good many things. In particular, I think color negative film was a misconceived technology -- I'm amazed that it ever worked, given the basically impossible problem of coordinating three color layers independently on both film and paper -- and it deserves to bite the dust soon. Digital color control is *much* better. No, it's not. More misinformation. The fact is no digital color space (the gamut) can or ever will equal the gamut and depth of color available in traditional color dye materials. Doesn't happen. In fact, the more a digtal image is processed towards output, the less gamut there is available in digital devices and the more color information that is actually lost. Again, you just don't know what you're talking about. Conventional black-and-white photography is the most different from digital (in terms of ability to achieve high quality). It is the one most worth preserving as a craft. Again, this is misinformation about the photographic process...
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#64
October 6th 04, 11:16 PM
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Phil Glaser wrote: "Michael A. Covington" wrote in message ... "Phil Glaser" wrote in message m... Conventional black-and-white photography is the most different from digital (in terms of ability to achieve high quality). It is the one most worth preserving as a craft. I have seen this statement made before, but I'm not sure I understand why this should be so. This is one of the reasons I was so surprised about Ilford's woes: if traditional black and white is stronger than digital black and white, why aren't these materials still selling? Can you elaborate? It's an art where the right things *are* controllable: contrast, density range... It's not a juggling act like color printing. That's why it appeals to me as a craft. Do you mean, for example, that digital does not have an equivalent of N+1, N+2 development, such that your only means of controlling contrast is manipulating the image after the fact? If so, what is it about the contrast and desnity controls with film that make them better than the way in which you can manipulate a digital image? And, are there other areas in which film is better for B&W image control? I ask these questions largely out of my ignorance of digital -- I really don't undersatnd the technology as well as I do film technology (which still isn't saying much . . . ) -- but also because I am in the throes of figuring out how much effort I will be putting into learning digital in the near future. Michael doesn't know what he's talking about, and I suggest you give his replies on digital due consideration accordingly. He talks about "bits" when the issue is color space. He talks about newspaper reproduction when the publishing side is separate from the photographic side, not to mention the quality and resolution needed for newsprint is the lowest of any print media (and the color sucks regardless.) "Art" also is not the issue nor a valid argument, since anything (good color, bad color, feces on a canvas) can be art.
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#65
October 6th 04, 11:56 PM
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Phil Glaser wrote: Conventional black-and-white photography is the most different from digital (in terms of ability to achieve high quality). It is the one most worth preserving as a craft. I have seen this statement made before, but I'm not sure I understand why this should be so. This is one of the reasons I was so surprised about Ilford's woes: if traditional black and white is stronger than digital black and white, why aren't these materials still selling? Can you elaborate? It's all about the marketing of digital as a competitor of film. See my post in 'Buy film, not equipment.' Digital is not film, but the power of advertising (and there is no truth in advertising) says it is. Probably 80% of the film buying public knows very little about photography or the differences between these two very different mediums and that's why they believe the advertising falsehoods that digital is "better" and is a replacement for film. This is a deliberate marketing strategy on the part of digital manufacturers. BTW, Michael, there is no "most different" from digital -- all photochemical imaging is equally different from digital AND of higher pictorial quality. Of course visual quality is a relative term, so let's stick to talking about the science: Digital is a competely different (non-photographic) medium. It cannot do what film does and never will. The physics don't support it. Color or B&W makes no difference: film is film and the differences from digital are the same. Dyes merely replace B&W silver grain patterns in color dye films; the resolution and "quality" remain the same. Image quality wise, silver halides record tonal detail on a molecular level (i.e., it takes just three photons to produce an viable exposure in a silver halide crystal and begin photolysis), whereas with silcon sensors each photodector site requires a much higher influx of photon energy to produce a viable signal that is then used to create an image pixel. Even the smallest photodetector is much larger than a typical silver halide crystal. For comparitive purposes, though, photoscientists have used equivalent pixels based on the number of absorbed photons per pixel area. In film, this is assumed to be 100 square micrometers; for a CDD sensor about 50 square micrometers. Yet film contains vastly greater numbers of 'equivalent pixels' than any digital imaging sensor is capable of producing, or will ever be capable of producing. (Simply, photodetectors can't get that small, since the electronics require enough photoelectrons to produce the signal and the *larger* the pixel the better the signal to nopise ratio.) This is why digital camera pixel pitch is on average about 9 microns or 80 square micrometers. Silver halide crystals are generally 1 micron and less. So, even the highest resolution sensors on the highest end digital "cameras" produce nowhere near the equivalent pixels film is capable of producing. Even the best one-shot prosumer digitals do not equal the pixels in a 35mm frame of film. And this affects "quality." Just how many pixels (quality-wise ) are we talking about? Highest resolution digital (to my knowledge) is currently the Better Light tri-linear scan camera, using three Kodak RGB tri-linear sensors. About 80 million pixels tops. Problem is this is a scan back, similar to a 3-shot (the only true digital color systems, BTW, as opposed to one shot bayer pattern consumer digitals.) Exposures take seconds or minutes. Typical prosumer digitals claim to have upwards of 11 million effective pixels, but in fact it takes 4 bayer pattern pixels (two green, one red, and one blue) to make one real color pixel. So, divide that by 1/4. Then you have to add Nyquist, where the image "quality" (or image detail as it relates to signal frequency) is reduced even further. ALL silicon sensor arrrays suffer from this limitation while silver halides do not. Nyquist relates to quality, since digital cameras simply can't handle most scene signal frequencies and must use either dumbed down lenses or anti-aliasing filters to reduce high frequency image detail. Silver haildes don't have this problem and can use the highest quality optics availble. So, film always has better "quality." The science says so. Back to actual pixels: 35mm film (400 speed color negative) has 24 millions actual equivalent pixels. 2&1/4 80-100 million. 4x5 has hundreds of millions of equivalent pixels. 8x10 is numbered in the billions. Of course silver grains aren't pixels; what we're talking about is the ability to record detail and the resulting image quality seen in prints made from those silver halide negatives. Film wins hands down, unless of course one is only reading newsprint, in which case the "quality" is so poor to begin with even a two megapixel digital camera is 'good enough.'
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#66
October 7th 04, 12:28 AM
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Phil Glaser wrote: John wrote in message . .. The thing is that people find working in the dark uncomfortable. I believe there are a significant nubmer of people (including myself) who make the digital/traditional decision based on their experience of the process. I sit in front of a computer all day (and am paying the price for it with my neck pain) and would therefore prefer to use the darkroom. But for this discussion I want to leave aside those sorts of questions about personal preference for the process. I'm interested in the fundamental question of which technology produces better photographs and why. Your answer to my question is a good start. But I still need more information. No one who sits in front of a computer screen is working with "photographs." Digital data is not a photograph. The ISO says so, and the science/physics say so. Digital images are representation data that has been regenerated from the voltage produced by photoelectric sensors. They don't record photographs, period and they will not last. The mediums are different to a remarkakble degree that manufacturers and markets completely ignore. In fact, they market misinformation for the purpose of competing with the film market. It's all about profits, not "which is better." Digital is a technology based medium; photography is a chemical phenomenon that can be accomplished with almost no technology at all (give me some paper and basic chemistry and I'll make you a photograph. Digital is useful for some things (great for publishing and scientific applications.) For pictorial imaging digital smiply cannot do what film does and canot match the image quality possible with silver haildes. And there's also a little thing digital geeks always ignore called Nyquist. Also they believe the spinmeisters when they tell them it's going to be easy for them to capture and print "photoz" on their inkjet printer. As if an inkjet can render a decent black ! I have some comparison prints I keep on the walls of my cubicle. A contact print from a 5X7 negative (Tri-X), several RA-4 prints made from a Fuji Frontier from my 6MP FinePix along with a coupld inkjet prints my wife made. Inkjet prints look like water colors, the Frontier prints aren't much better and of course the contact print is perfect. Ok, now suppose you can afford to have your digital images printed by one of those proceses that exposes digital images on traditional paper using lasers. Light Jet...uh, you can have you're film scanned and also output this way. This is what most photographers do. I'm told the quality of such prints is phenomenal (and the price astronomical). Assuming that the quality of such a print equals or surpasses that of what you could produce in your darkroom Big assumption. As long as you have quality optics, optical prints are just as high quality. I know, I do both. (assume hypothetically if you disagree with the assertion), is film capture of a black and white image better than digital? If so, why? Irrelevant. You are making a value judgment, not a "which is better" based on imaging abilities. Again, silver halides are the basis for all film, color or b&w. Silicon sensors are inherently monochrome, so the issue is the imaging abilities, and as I've pointed out Nyquist is the major limiting factor in digital imaging abilitites and "quality." Does film have a better dynamic range? Is it easier to manipulate the contrast? Etc., etc., etc.? Film has greater latitude (the ability to record a high quality image over a range of exposures) and also a greater DR. Digital offers a greater analytical range. Again, please restrict the universe of discourse to black and white. I don't care about color. All color film is black and white.
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#68
October 7th 04, 02:00 AM
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In article ,
Tom Phillips wrote: not to mention the quality and resolution needed for newsprint is the lowest of any print media (and the color sucks regardless.) Like its like ink jet printing on toilet paper. -- LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918
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#69
October 7th 04, 02:08 AM
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What I really wish is that I could somewhere use the
most advanced output device to draw my own conclusions regarding how good, good can be. I do know any conventional print I in house make, blows away any thing I have seen come from prolabs printing my work either conventional or digital. I think for so long "many" have lusted after the control that digital somewhat affords, that those many, without the controls of doing your own work conventionally,.. are quite willing to suckit up and say this is great without a real frame of reference. I hope I stated that thought clearly? In article , Tom Phillips wrote: No, it's not. More misinformation. The fact is no digital color space (the gamut) can or ever will equal the gamut and depth of color available in traditional color dye materials. Doesn't happen. In fact, the more a digtal image is processed towards output, the less gamut there is available in digital devices and the more color information that is actually lost. Again, you just don't know what you're talking about. -- LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918
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#70
October 7th 04, 02:13 AM
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In article ,
Donald Qualls wrote: Daguerreotypists were at somewhat less risk than hatters in the mid-19th century, because they used only small quantities of mercury and kept it confined In a box: Interesting side bar, the angle one fumes the plate determines the angle the image can be viewed. Wet plates, though, had their own fumes -- ether was the only solvent common in the wet plate era that would dissolve collodion, which made the wet plate photographer's darkroom (and that of tintypists and ambrotypists, who used the same process) both highly intoxicating, and extremely flammable. Don't you just love ether? Ahh the aroma....where is that scarpeachy Now? -- LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918
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